iPad To Get 30,000 Free eBooks on Launch

[iDan]

And the news just keeps getting better and better for those looking forward to using their iPad as a reader. AppAdvice is reporting that the entire Project Gutenberg catalog will be directly available for free download on the iPad via iBooks. Project Gutenberg is a free online library which features over 30,000 copyright-expired titles. And we’re not talking just any old rubbish here either! A quick glance at the Project Gutenberg Top 100 reveals that Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is currently number 1, with other titles including Dracula by Bram Stoker, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and the Kama Sutra!

However, as exciting as this prospect is, at the moment it’s possible that only US iPad and iBooks users will be able to take advantage of the free downloads, as Project Gutenberg points out on their Wiki that the books are only free in the US because their copyright has expired in that country, and this might not be the case outside of the US.

By Maura Sutton
[Source: AppAdvice.com]

 

[iDan]

Check out the complete list @ Main Page - Gutenberg

 

[iVan]

Project Gutenberg books are also available in Canada where the Canadian Public Domain has even less restrictions than in the US.

 

[brobar]

Awesome! Wanting to work my way through "the essential man's library" and 43 of the 100 must reads are all available through the gutenberg project.

 

[gentlefury]

I was actually planning to read Alice in Wonderland on google books once I got my ipad but if its available in reader format even better!

 

[Ellie]

I am so excited about this. I have an app called Free Books on my iphone and it is Gutenberg with some other freebies and I was afraid I would not be able use on iPad but this is wonderful. Everything will be big enough Granny's eyes to see. :comingsoon:

 

[Ellie]

I looked at the Gutenberg webpage and I am thrilled.

 

[iDan]

Has anyone downloaded books from this? How does it work with iBooks?

 

[brobar]

Has anyone downloaded books from this? How does it work with iBooks?

It is part of iBooks. If you go into the iBooks app you can search for the title and if it is free just download it like any other iBooks book. They have a best selling section which includes paid for and free books... which will show you the most downloaded lists of each.

Works fine... I downloaded several free books (but no paid ones yet). The few paid ones I was looking at they upped the price right before launch. Publishers are gonna try and take advantage of the iPad hysteria and see if they can get away with raising prices. Hopefully people will stand firm and let 'em know that higher prices just because it is a new device is not warranted. I'll wait until the books I want come back down in price before jumping.

 

[iDan]

Very cool, thanks for the help! I was surprised Apple doesn't have a category for "free" books. Also, I noticed you can search for "FREE" and that pulls up a good list of books as well.

 

[CGPanama]

iDan thanks for the tip. I did a quick scan for a way to browse free books, but could not find one. Hadn't thought to search for free as a keyword.

I found that the few that I pulled down looked pretty good. Some of the chapter listings weren't configured well. And the Complete Works of Shakespeare does not list the play titles in the Table of Contents which makes finding a work a bit difficult (unless you happen to remember which play has a scene that is set at "Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire" (Third Part of King Henry the Sixth, if you care ;-) But the project's formatting seems to have translated well, and the iBooks app certainly makes them look polished.